I get where you are coming from Matebe, but I disagree. We’ve got a pretty even squad at the moment, which means some good players – particularly mid-sized defenders – are not going to maximise their potential in our team.
Let’s say for the sake of argument that some combination of Pearce, Hamling and Cox are key tall backs, that means we’ve Ryan, Logue, Wilson, Hughes, Conca, Young, Duman and Watson all vying for a few spots for the next few years. We’ve still got Hill for (hopefully) a couple of years, and other players like Cerra, Aish or Acres who could easily slot to half-back at times.
depth is great, but managers need to think fourth dimensionally about the list. If we trade Duman, for example, it’s unlikely we’re getting a player better than Duman in return with whatever pick we receive; but what we might get is a player who is a better fit for our team in three years’ time (eg, a genuine tall defender). A player who is 90% as good as Duman but who plays 90% of available games in the 2024 team is more valuable than Duman is for us the next few years if he’s only playing 30% of our games. Assuming we are good for the next 5 years, our draft position declines which means getting talent in the door in future years will be more difficult.
I’d be more than happy to keep them all, so long as they are happy to stay and spend a bit of time at Peel; but Ryan Nyhuis is a recent example of a similar type of player who would have benefited from having a crack with a different team.
